"What do you want," he asked as a ghost of a smile passed his lips.

Why, why, why did that sound sexual to me?

5

Jameson

“It’s a fallacy that men can’t focus on two things at once. Example: Boobs.” @Kavon #BOOBS

I'd been staring up at the squiggly lines on the wall since I sat my sorry ass against the snack machine. My head was a mess. Christ. My whole life was a mess.

Sophia slept with the Mailroom Guy. What in the actual fuck? I mean first off, he was a punk ass kid. He couldn't have been more that twenty-two. Second, he was the mailroom guy. What in the actual fuck? You put us in a line up and ask a bunch of woman walking down the street which of us they'd want more. You can bet I'd be the one they'd choose every time.

Every time but where Sophia was concerned.

The mailroom guy?

I busted open another bag of chips and peeked inside. Wonderful. I bought a bag of air with one mouthful of chips inside. What I needed was a damn sandwich, or a steak. Gulping at my water, my gaze moved restlessly around the narrow hallway. The need to crawl out of my own skin was infuriating. I was Jameson Holt, damn it. People wanted to be me, not the other way around. Squeezing my eyes shut, I crushed the bag of chips in my hand.

Hearing a shuffle along the rug, I looked up.

Hello.

Cascades of wavy, ink black hair, plump, rosy lips, and stunning blue eyes. And she was wearing...Jesus...what was she wearing? A hooker on the business level of a hotel? That’s not stereotypical at all. I wondered which of the losers I worked with had to pay to play, and how much, because that was the best-looking prostitute I'd ever seen. I'd only seen the crackhead kind on the corner of 42nd in New York, black-toothed and track-marked.

Wait a second.

She looked very familiar.

Was that…

Was that Lexa Novak?

Christ, she's perfect.

Her eyes widened and she froze halfway down the hallway. This was not the same woman I'd seen with her hair pinned back and her man repellerware on. This woman was stunning. I didn't know where to look first; those eyes were striking with her dark hair framing her face, her smooth skin and long legs. A pair of little boy shorts outlining curves I could sink my teeth into. And her tits—I could go on for days about her tits.

Clearing her throat, cheeks flushed bright red that spread down the center of her body; she mumbled something that I couldn't quite make out. She looked like she was about to run.

But damn, I wanted her to stay.

"Sit," I said, and offered her something from my stockpile of junk food.

"What are you doing out here at three in the morning?" she asked. There was a soft throatiness to her voice and I wondered how I'd never noticed it before. How in hell had I never noticed her before?

I shoved a handful of chips into my mouth as an answer. She smiled. Beautiful. What the hell was she thinking walking around dressed like that? Damn, I could just imagine what Evan would have done if he'd seen her like that.

"You were in a relationship with Sophia, weren't you?" she asked slowly.

I choked on the chips. I mean, truly choked, almost needing the Heimlich maneuver kind of choking on chips. Eyes watering, heart pounding, throat burning—the works.

"Oh, God," she dropped her face in her hands and peeked at me through her fingers. I was choking and dying; she was blushing five shades of peek-a-boo. "I'm right, aren't I? You and Sophia? I'm sorry, Mr. Holt, I have no filter. I vomit words…it's like a disease."

I gulped at my water, trying to quench the burn in my throat, and then looked at her. She shook her head and bit down on her lip. "Crap, I'm so sorry," she whispered.

I chuckled. "It's quite all right, Ms. Novak. That's more of an apology than I got from Sophia." I threw her over a bag of M&Ms and shrugged. "Nobody knew. Well, Evan did, but that's because he's a stupid nosy prick and figured it out. It's just been a few months."

She nodded her head thoughtfully and I stared at her—and I mean really stared at her. No makeup, not even some of that lip crap or that black junk that makes eyelashes long and gunky. There was a small cluster of freckles across her cheeks that strangely matched the natural hue of her lips. And she wasn't skinny, although she was by no means fat; she was just curvy and soft all over, like a classic Marilyn Monroe. Not a single stitch of the plastic surgery I was accustomed to with Sophia with her fake tits that don't bounce and her quarterly lipo and cellulite removal.

She grabbed one of the cans of soda, popped it open with a loud hiss, and held it up. A sad smile flitted across her lips and she clinked her drink to mine. "Well, we sure know how to pick 'em, don't we? I should've known after the first night I stayed over at his house it was all bad."

I couldn't help but smile and ask, "How so?"

"His mommy woke me up when she went to get his laundry out of his room."

It felt like it was the first time I laughed in days. She even laughed, but it never reached her eyes. God, it must be awful for her to be going through this right before her wedding.

"How are you holding up?" I asked, watching her separate the colored chocolates in her hand then pop one color in her mouth at a time. First, all the browns, then yellows, followed by reds, oranges, greens, and the blues were saved for last.

"Good, question. I'll let you know when I find an answer, because I have no idea how I'm not sobbing uncontrollably since it happened," she said, her voice soft and low. Her eyes gazed at her fingers, folding and bending what was left of the snack bag.

"What happens now? What are you going to do?"

She absently scraped her teeth against her lips and looked down the hall. "I want to cancel everything. Just go somewhere and hide for a little while so I don't have to hear everybody talk about it. I'm probably going to lose all my deposits and everything." She turned her head toward me and sighed. "I can't even begin to think about what our families will have to say about everything."

A strange heaviness ached in my chest for her.

"How about you?" she asked, sipping her soda.

"I'm pissed, but not as upset as I should be. I guess that shows you how I really felt about her. Kind of eye opening. I'm more sorry that you got hurt than anything. I'm sorry you had to go through the pain for all her bullshit."

She pulled her knees to just under her chin and wrapped her arms around them. "He blamed it all on me."

"She blamed me too."

A faint smile tugged at her lips. "I'm sorry, but I don't get how she'd go from you to him."

"Yeah, well, at first she pretended she was doing it for the magazine. She said Trager was the mailroom guy and knew how to get in contact with that infamous blogger Alex Kavon, which was a lie and I told her that. Finally, she just let me have it. She said I was emotionally unavailable and selfish. And to kick me while I was down, she said I wasn't good in bed. Which is another lie, by the way."

Thankfully, she laughed, because it sure wasn't like me to tell a beautiful woman that another woman had any complaints about me. It was all lies anyway. Sophia was trying to get me jealous. She wanted me to put up some sort of a fight for her, ask her to be my girlfriend exclusively, like we were all still in middle school. "Wasn't good in bed? Well what the hell was she doing with Trager then?" Her laughter softened.